Bristol ran riot in a remarkable first half to secure their place in the Investec Champions Cup knockout phase with a 61-49 victory over the Bulls in Pool Four in Pretoria.<\/p>\n
The South African hosts fielded 10 Springboks in their starting XV in the hope of registering a first win of the group campaign yet were still swept aside at Loftus Versfeld.<\/p>\n
Bristol started like a freight train, running in three tries inside the opening 10 minutes and seven in total to build a interval 47-28 lead.<\/p>\n
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This content is provided by Twitter, which may be using cookies and other technologies. Unfortunately we have been unable to verify if you have consented to Twitter cookies. Enable Cookies<\/a> Wing Noah Heward crossed twice and there were also touch downs for Benhard Janse van Rensburg, Max Lahiff, Kalaveti Ravouvou and Kieran Marmion.<\/p>\n The Bulls offered more resistance in the second half but Bristol continued to fire shots with Heward completing his hat-trick, Pedro Rubiolo breaching the whitewash and Ravouvou running in his second.<\/p>\n A third win in as many outings in the competition lifts the Bears to the top of Pool Four above main rivals Northampton and Bordeaux, who collide at Stade Chaban-Delmas on Sunday.<\/p>\n Sale book last-16 spot in comfortable Sharks win<\/p>\n A dominant second-half display gave Sale a 26-10 win over South African side Sharks in Pool One and a spot in the last 16.<\/p>\n The visitors went ahead through Siya Masuku’s penalty but Sale led 7-3 at half-time thanks to a try from Rekeiti Ma’asi-White.<\/p>\n Ten minutes into the second half Bevan Rodd popped up at the back of the maul to score.<\/p>\n Twitter<\/p>\n This content is provided by Twitter, which may be using cookies and other technologies. Unfortunately we have been unable to verify if you have consented to Twitter cookies. Enable Cookies<\/a> Five minutes later George Ford and Obi Ene combined to put Tom O’Flaherty over in the corner.<\/p>\n Sharks responded when Manu Tshituka charged past Ford to score and Masuku’s conversion brought them to within nine points.<\/p>\n But Sale went straight back up the other end with O’Flaherty getting the bonus-point try and Ford adding his third conversion.<\/p>\n Byrne’s last-kick penalty earns Leinster thrilling win over La Rochelle<\/p>\n Harry Byrne held his nerve to lift Leinster to a last-gasp 25-24 victory over La Rochelle at the Aviva Stadium.<\/p>\n La Rochelle had seemed poised to walk away from Dublin with the spoils from a seesaw tussle after Ihaia West dotted down late on but replacement fly-half Byrne’s penalty in the 83rd minute sealed a third win from three Pool Three matches for Leinster.<\/p>\n Joshua Kenny crossed twice as Leinster stormed into a 12-0 lead inside 10 minutes but either side of Nolann Le Garrec’s penalty, Davit Niniashvili and West scored converted tries to put La Rochelle 17-12 up.<\/p>\n Twitter<\/p>\n This content is provided by Twitter, which may be using cookies and other technologies. Unfortunately we have been unable to verify if you have consented to Twitter cookies. Enable Cookies<\/a> Leinster seemed to have regained the upper hand when Josh van der Flier levelled proceedings before Robbie Henshaw went over soon after.<\/p>\n West’s second score was followed by Le Garrec nudging La Rochelle ahead again with his third conversion with three minutes left, but Leinster earned a late penalty and Byrne successfully split the posts with a tricky kick a few metres out from the right touchline.<\/p>\n Leinster are now guaranteed a spot in the last-16 ahead of their final group match at Bayonne next weekend.<\/p>\n Glasgow down Clermont to book knockout place<\/p>\n Glasgow Warriors are also guaranteed a spot in the last-16 of the Champions Cup after claiming a third bonus-point win on the spin by beating Clermont Auvergne 33-21.<\/p>\n After edging out Sale in their Pool One opener and then hitting back from 21-0 down to stun six-time champions Toulouse last month, the Warriors took charge at the Parc des Sports Marcel Michelin.<\/p>\n First-half tries from Euan Ferrie, Huw Jones, Kyle Steyn and Jack Dempsey, three converted by George Horne, helped the visitors establish a 26-7 lead at the break, with George Moala scoring for Clermont.<\/p>\n Twitter<\/p>\n This content is provided by Twitter, which may be using cookies and other technologies. Unfortunately we have been unable to verify if you have consented to Twitter cookies. Enable Cookies<\/a> But Patrick Schickerling was yellow carded for offside, with Horne joining him in the sin bin for a deliberate knock on, with Clermont awarded a penalty try and Glasgow down to 13 men.<\/p>\n Clermont capitalised on the two-man advantage as Irae Simone touched down, closing the gap to five points just after the hour, but Steyn’s second try made sure of a Glasgow win.<\/p>\n Having made sure of a spot in the knockout stages, Glasgow could claim top spot in their group by beating Saracens at Scotstoun next weekend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bristol ran riot in a remarkable first half to secure their place in the Investec Champions Cup knockout…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":404907,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-404906","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-rugby","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=404906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404906\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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